Kanata's Jamie Lee Rattray knows hometown crowd isn't on her side in PWHL semifinal

Boston Fleet forward Jamie Lee Rattray during third-period action in Game 3 of the PWHL semifinal against the Ottawa Charge at the Canadian Tire Centre on Friday. Photo by TONY CALDWELL /POSTMEDIA

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It even felt that way back when she knew it as the Corel Centre, when a hockey-obsessed five-year-old took her first laps on the ice with her novice hockey team.

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Nearly 30 years and a few arena rebrands later, Rattray is back in familiar territory for a high-stakes semifinal series, playing in her first PWHL games on hometown ice.

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“It’s pretty cool, kind of a full-circle moment,” Rattray told the Ottawa Citizen.

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The stakes are now higher than they were when she was five, and these days the hometown crowd isn’t cheering for the 33-year-old Kanata native.

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Now in her third season as an alternate captain with the Boston Fleet, Rattray has grown accustomed to Ottawa fans rooting against her.

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“As the visitor, it’s going to be a little difficult,” she said. “We want to get the energy out of this building as opposed to pumping it up.”

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The Canadian Tire Centre is just a short drive from Rattray’s childhood home in Kanata, where she spent countless nights cheering on the Ottawa Senators with her dad.

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Growing up surrounded by hockey, with NHL games nearby and local rinks in every direction, it was hard for her not to fall in love with the sport.

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“Where I grew up in Kanata, there were about eight rinks super close,” she recalled. “As a kid, there were always outdoor rinks everywhere because it got so cold around here.”

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Local rinks like Mlacak Arena, Jack Charron Arena and the Kanata Rec Centre remain vivid in her memory.

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“You remember the smells of them, the looks of them,” she said. “I’m sure they’ve changed a little bit over the years.”

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For parents David and Melodie Rattray, supporting a daughter devoted to hockey meant years of driving to practices, games and tournaments across Ontario.

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“She played in a lot of small rinks for a lot of years to finally get this to be realized,” Melodie said.

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“She spent five or six days a week playing hockey, so she never really had a chance to get in trouble,” David added with a chuckle.

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David and Melodie Rattray say they’re thrilled to have their daughter, Jamie Lee Rattray, playing at the Canadian Tire Centre, just a short drive away from their Kanata home. Photo by NATASHA BALDIN /POSTMEDIA

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Now retired, David and Melodie are putting even more miles on their car than they did during Jamie Lee’s minor hockey career.

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They estimate they’ve seen a little under half of Jamie Lee’s PWHL games this season. They’ve driven to see five games in Boston, flown to Vancouver and Seattle and regularly make trips to Montreal and Toronto to watch their daughter play.

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“They’ve done that seven-hour drive (to Boston) quite a bit,” Jamie Lee said, “so they don’t miss much.”

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Just for this weekend, David and Melodie are enjoying the much shorter commute of just 10 minutes from home to arena even if that means that they’ll be the pesky visiting fans at the Canadian Tire Centre for the very first time, with David’s green PWHL Boston jersey from the inaugural season sticking out in a sea of red Charge jerseys.